Census: Initial checks show 2010 count as accurate

HOPE YEN, Associated Press

The government expressed confidence Wednesday that official 2010 census results reflected high levels of accuracy, with signs of improvement from 2000.

At a news briefing, Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said the official census tally of 308.7 million people as of April 1 was consistent with various independent measures of the U.S. population, such as those based on birth and death records.

He also said preliminary analysis indicated the Census Bureau may have matched or boosted its accuracy from 2000, based on strong mail-in participation rates and a reduction of duplicates in its address list.

Historically, the once-a-decade population count has disproportionately missed minorities, particularly poor people in dense cities, as well as children. In 2000, the bureau noted for the first time an overcount of 1.3 million people, due mostly to duplicate counts of more affluent whites with multiple residences. About 4.5 million people were ultimately missed, mostly blacks and Hispanics.

On Wednesday, Groves acknowledged that census workers in some urban and low-income areas had difficulty getting responses from people; in those cases, building managers were queried to get the information.

Groves said while there has never been a perfect census, three different analyses suggested "a measurable improvement over the 2000 census."

"These are preliminary, but it's heartwarming when we see this," he said.

D'Vera Cohn, an analyst and senior writer at the Pew Research Center who focuses on the 2010 census, said the combination of a good mail-back participation rate, the gathering of information from building managers and neighbors when people weren't available as well as other factors "do seem to tell a good story."

"There are some promising preliminary indicators at the national level, but of course we'll need to know more about the historically undercounted groups and about lower levels of geography," she said.

Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former staff director of the House Census oversight subcommittee who now advises advocacy groups such as the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, agreed the early indicators are "encouraging."

"While overall accuracy is a useful goal, the question of fairness rests on whether the census counts urban and rural areas, poorer and wealthier communities, and different racial and ethnic subgroups, with similar levels of accuracy."

Additional detail on census accuracy is expected to become available as local-level data is released this year, but a full assessment won't be known until 2012.

Last month, the Census Bureau reported the nation's population was 308,745,538, up from 281.4 million a decade ago. The growth rate for the past decade was 9.7 percent, the lowest since the Great Depression, with most of the growth occurring in the South and West.

The population changes will result in a shift of House seats affecting 18 states that will take effect in 2013. The big winners included Texas, which will pick up four new House seats, and Florida, which will gain two.

Beginning in February through March, the Census Bureau will release population and race breakdowns down to the neighborhood level for states to redraw congressional boundaries. Louisiana, Virginia, New Jersey and Mississippi will be among the first states to receive their redistricting data.

The 2010 census results also are used to distribute more than $400 billion in annual federal aid and will change each state's Electoral College votes beginning in the 2012 presidential election.